This 39th adaptation of the Alexandre Dumas classic by directors Alexandre de La Patellière and Matthieu Delaporte achieved the second best score at the French box office in 2024.
Have the producers found the recipe for the French blockbuster in the adaptations ofAlexandre Dumas ? After The Three Musketeersanother literary masterpiece by the writer is adapted for the big screen. And successfully, since The Count of Monte Cristodirected by Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre de La Pattelière, signs the second best box office score of the year 2024, with 9.34 million spectators who discovered the film in theaters (it is narrowly ahead of A little something extra and its 10.8 million spectators). It can be seen in streaming until March 18, 2025 on the MyCanal platform.
On June 28, 2024, the 39 was releasede (!) adaptation of the novel featuring the revenge of Edmond Dantès. In detail, the book and the film tell the story of this naive young sailor who finds life smiles on him when he is promoted to captain and goes to marry the woman of his life. But his happiness arouses the desires of other men who then hatch a plot against him and have him locked up in If prison for a crime he did not commit. After 12 years, he escapes and, under the name of the Count of Monte Cristo, he carefully prepares his revenge.
If The Count of Monte Cristo is the adaptation of one of the greatest works of French literary heritage, its incredible plot questions: is it inspired by a true story? Difficult to decide. Some think that it would be inspired by a news item experienced by a certain François Picaud, also known as Pierre Picaud. This Nîmes bedroom shoemaker was allegedly the victim of a frame-up at the beginning of the 19th century. While he was going to marry a very beautiful and very rich woman, one of his jealous friends wrongly accused him of being a spy and a royalist agent in the pay of England. Picaud was reportedly arrested on his wedding day and spent seven years locked up in the Fenestrelle fortress. He is said to have linked up with an Italian priest who left him his fortune. Released in 1814, he took the identity of a certain Joseph Lucher and began his revenge against his accusers. This story would have been written in the police archives by Jacques Peuchet, which Alexandre Dumas would have transcribed in a notice in one of the editions of the Count of Monte Cristopublished in 1846.
However, there is no other trace in the archives of the story which would have inspired that of Edmond Dantès. According to the work of genealogists, Picaud would also be a character invented by Etienne-Leon Lamothe-Langon, who would have sought to romanticize Peuchet’s police archives. On the other hand, it would itself be inspired by the life of a Marseille convict held for several years in prison, Gaspard-Etienne Pastorel. Speaking to France Culture, Isabelle Safa, specialist in Alexandre Dumas, says that this inmate condemned to the galleys would have taken on several identities, like the characters of Picaud and Dantès. A twisted story that dates back to the 19th century but which nevertheless continues to fascinate the public even in the 2020s.
Synopsis – Victim of a conspiracy, young Edmond Dantès is arrested on his wedding day for a crime he did not commit. After fourteen years of detention at the Château d’If, he managed to escape. Having become immensely rich, he returns under the identity of the Count of Monte Cristo to take revenge on the three men who betrayed him.
The casting of Count of Monte Cristo
In the casting of Count of Monte Cristo version 2024, it’s the actor Pierre Niney who was chosen to play the main character, opposite other figures of French cinema: Bastien Bouillon (The night of the 12th), Anaïs Demoustier (The loves of Anaïs), Anamaria Vartolomei (The event), but also Laurent Lafitte. The first trailer revealed by Pathé promises an epic film for French spectators.
The dramatic potential of Count of Monte Cristo no longer needs to be proven, and directors Alexandre de La Patellière and Matthieu Delaporte (The First Name) understood this well. If the scenario is well-known and the novel has been adapted countless times, we cannot deny our pleasure in front of this cinematographic fresco.
Because this new adaptation does not skimp on means, and offers an ambitious fresco that meets the challenges of the novel, although too long in its first part. The staging is grandiose, served by sumptuous sets, photography, lighting and costumes. The viewer is completely immersed in the revenge of Edmond Dantès.
But the real strength of this adaptation of Count of Monte Cristo lies in the plurality of its casting. The main actors, Pierre Niney in the lead who is transfigured by the role of Edmond Dantès as if it had been written for him, and Anamaria Vartolomei who bursts the screen in each of his appearances in the guise of Haydée, while the rest of the cast (Bastien Bouillon, Laurent Laffite, Patrick Mille, Vassili Schneider…) brings a real richness of interpretation to this distribution.